Crappy and out of date

Wow I'm shit at this blogging thing. Here's what I've been up to in the 1.5 months since my last post:

- Got over shitty cold #1 and had less than a month of not resembling a huge mucus-trailing slug before being felled by another shitty cold. Am currently on 2nd week of slithering around feebly, trailing sputum in my slimy wake

- My tomatoes have blown up into a crazy tomato jungle and I don't really know what to do with them

- Periodically overfeeding a box of worms

- Started Spanish lessons (because failing at 2 languages is just not quite enough)

- Entered a Mario Kart 64 tournament and failed due to drunkenness

- Presented a poster at a conference, also going to another 2 conferences this month ('tis the season?)

- So much dentistry. I don't even want a mouth any more

Stir Crazy

I've had a pretty awful cold for the past 3 weeks or so, and haven't really left the house apart from to go to work and for various errands. I've only got the lingering tail-end of a cough left to fight off now, so hopefully I'll be able to go out and do something fun this long weekend. Meanwhile, here are some random things from inside my apartment.

The only vaguely active thing I've been doing is some gardening in the corner of our balcony which gets a bit of sun. I'm trying to be good with remembering to water things, but it's anyone's guess how long I'll be able to keep these little guys alive for. My negligence is notorious when it comes to things that don't vocally nag me to feed them. Thank goodness for flatmates who are less slack than I.

Beers at South Head

A couple of sunny Sundays ago, we ventured across the city to Watsons Bay/South Head. After a confusing start (in which we nearly trespassed on a navy base and then almost fell on a small child while climbing down a dirt track), we managed to work our way past the throngs of tourists taking pictures of middle-aged men's junk on the nudist beach and secure ourselves a secluded clifftop spot  (far from any pale buttocks cheerily quivering in the cold ocean breeze) in which to enjoy some afternoon beers (because day-drinking is the best*). There are a bunch of neat things at South Head, including the cute candy patterned Hornby Lighthouse (build after more than 100 people died in shipwrecks off the coast in the 1850s) and a bunch of old gun emplacements and tunnels, not to mention awesome views over Sydney Harbour on one side and east towards NZ on the other.

Watsons Bay is super easy to get to, only about 20 minutes by ferry from Circular Quay, and the South Head Heritage Trail is an easy walk which can take anywhere between 15 minutes and a whole afternoon depending on how strongly your inner meerkat urges you to play in the tunnels.

* Disclaimer: don't try this at home or elsewhere, kids. Climbing up and down cliffs to drink illegally in public is for stupid irresponsible adults like us, not sensible people who don't want to fall to their deaths and/or be fined^. 

^ Seriously though, if you insist on drinking in public, you'll probably be fine as long as you're not trying to get totally wasted and aren't making a dick of yourself and/or littering.

City Lights

I really am the most terrible blogger. Once I let one week slip by without a post, the others just sneak right along after and by the time I notice, it's already over a month since I last touched any photos! The worst part is, I have all these posts planned in my head but I never get around to setting fingers to keyboard or remembering to take my camera with me when I go out. I'll try to be better, but only time will tell if trying is enough.

Following on from the topic of my slackness, I finally got around to looking through my photos from Vivid several months ago. Vivid is a festival held annually in Sydney in May/June where the city is decked out in interactive light-based art displays. Most of the major landmark historical buildings are lit up, and the displays change every year.

This is the third Vivid I've been to, with the first being the week after I moved to Sydney - a great introduction to a new city!

They really outdid themselves withe the Customs House building this year, with vines breaking through the brickwork and bursting into an exuberant display of the magic of nature.

This year, they also extended the light displays to Chatswood, with a nautical theme incorporating one of my favourite creatures, the jellyfish!

Despite all my complaints about Sydney, stuff like this makes it a pretty interesting place to live in.

A walk

Although I have practically no inbuilt insulation, I tend to prefer cooler temperatures than the crazy heat that seems to engulf Sydney for half of the year. After 2 years, I think my heat-intolerant body is finally acclimatising to the Sydney weather a little, in that this winter has seemed as freezing (if not more so) than winters in Auckland. However, unlike the perpetual sogginess of Auckland, Sydney winters mean plenty of clear skies and gentle breezes. This creates fantastic opportunities for doing outdoorsy things at a temperature that doesn't make me want to melt into a puddle of goo.

We headed out to Manly (thank you, free Opal trips!) on Saturday to get some nature and such in us on the Manly Scenic Walkway, a panoramic track that winds past several nice beaches, through some bush and past a bunch of  beachside mansions where millionaires probably eat hookers or whatever it is that rich people do on the weekend.

The Council website lies - the stated 4-5 hour walk only took us 2.5 hours or so, including a detour where we decided to clamber over the exposed rocks at a couple of beaches during low tide rather than walk a track like sensible people. I can't deal with beaches easily accessible by public transport in the summertime (because of this), but maybe I need to reassess this situation next summer with beaches that require an hour's hike to get to. This was a relatively busy walk, as it's probably one of the more popular day walks in Sydney, but there were still many pockets of tranquility where the strange squawkings of the avian inhabitants were only interrupted by the humming of ferries from far across the harbour. On the whole, not a bad way to enjoy a lovely sunny winter's afternoon.

Photos taken in Sydney in July 2015.